Nobody Will Tell You This But Me

by Bess Kalb

  Anyhow, we were eating salads and yours was a wedge and you dumped the dressing on top—all of it. I’d ordered it for you on the side for a reason. I noticed how your cheeks were too full and your arms weren’t as lithe as they could be, and I told you, “Bessie—that’s enough.” You stopped moving entirely and you clenched your jaw.

  Very slowly, you stood up. You wouldn’t look at anyone. You walked straight past the Ballards, who couldn’t imagine why anyone would be so dramatic—I had to tell them you had food poisoning—and you headed into the parking lot.

  Your grandfather looked at me with such sadness. “Bob. Go to her.”

  I walked out of the restaurant, and there you were, slumped beside the car, crying into your hands. Snot and everything.

  I felt very small across the parking lot from you, with you so far away. I walked to you and you glared at me. “Grandma,” you said, “you can’t say those kinds of things to me.” I knew what you meant. I knew I was right, too. But I knew it didn’t matter. You were furious—you wouldn’t look at me. You looked straight at the ground. I’d never seen you like that. And I didn’t know what to do.

  You were an attractive girl, but a pound on the wrong side of the scale is noticeable because you’re short. The weight always went to your hips, and the style was these skinny jeans, so there was no escaping it. You loved to eat. Always. I’d move the bread rolls at Thanksgiving. I’d push your plate away from you when you’d eaten a full portion. “Bessie, you’ve had enough!” It was a song I sang. I thought you were in on it.

  Your mother blamed me for how much you took it to heart. She said it would harm you. That after a stomach flu when you lost four pounds in a week you told her, “Grandma would be proud,” and she laughed but then she called me screaming.

  So there you were, breathing deeply in and out, and you raised your head with red eyes, looking at me like I was a stranger. I had lost you. There’s only one other person who’s ever looked at me like that in my entire life. And I created her, too.

  So I took both of your hands in mine and clutched them. I squeezed down hard, to remind you of me. I said what I always said: “Bessie, do you know how much I love you?”

  You were about to say something, but all you could do was let out a very quiet gasp. And then we were both crying. We didn’t hug; we held all four of our hands, all entwined, and yours covered in mucus.

  We looked like nutcases. We were.

  Then I said something I never said to your mother: “I’m so, so sorry.” You said, “I know.” You didn’t forgive me. You didn’t say, “It’s okay.” You just looked me right in the eye and said, “I know.” I took you in my arms and smelled the top of your head and squeezed your ribs into mine.

  And we went home and watched a Turner Classic Movie on my bed eating cinnamon rugelach right out of the container.

  PHONE CALL, NOVEMBER 8, 2016

  GRANDMOTHER: Bessie, I can’t watch.

  GRANDDAUGHTER: Grandma, it’s fine. They haven’t counted Michigan.

  No.

  It’s not over.

  My father.

  I know.

  My father would kill you if you weren’t a Democrat.

  Grandma, it’s going to be okay.

  My father would kill himself.

  I know.

  I’m so upset I could cry.

  Don’t cry. It’ll be all right. There’s no way he is going to be president.

  You’re wrong.

  I know.

  My father was a union organizer.

  I know.

  He used to stand on an overturned milk crate in Union Square.

  I thought it was a soapbox.

  Whatever it was. Doesn’t matter.

  Grandma, do you know what your zayde would say?

  Now’s not the time.

  He’d say one foot in front of the other.

  He’d show up at Mar-a-Lago with an elephant gun.

  APARTMENT LIVING ROOM, PALM BEACH, 2015

  GRANDMOTHER: It’s fine, Bess. The mucus has to come up.

  GRANDDAUGHTER: You’re barely able to catch your breath.

  It’s good. It’s fine. I’m getting it out. It’s good.

  Grandma, we should take it easy—let’s eat at home. There’s plenty of stuff in the apartment. I was up late—I’m tired, too.

  Who said anything about being tired?

  You’re coughing too much. You’re going through a pack of tissues a day. It’s not good—just don’t push it. I need you.

  I need you, too.

  You have to rest.

  Neither of us can sleep at night. Our brains keep going.

  Maybe we should take something.

  Then who would do the worrying?

  My mother.

  Your mother. Bessie, pat my back—

  I got you. It’s okay. Let it out.

  Bessie?

  Yes, Grandma.

  Get my handbag. We’re going out to lunch.

  VERY ILL

  I wasn’t ill for very long before I died, but right before my heart went out, I gave your mother jewelry. I showed her my drawer in the bedroom in Palm Beach and I started putting all of these pieces in her hands. I made her get a Ziploc bag when she couldn’t hold it all. It was mostly junk—all the diamonds and fine pieces were in the vault. But I gave your mother my black pearl necklace, a pin from Russia, my clip-ons, the bangle I brought back from Italy, and my brass ring inlaid with colored stones the size of jelly beans. She didn’t refuse like she usually did. She just said, “Thanks, Mom.” A week later I lay down and that was that.

  I knew and she knew. It’s why I didn’t call you. It’s why I refused the phone when you called: you called your mom and asked her to give the phone to me and I wouldn’t let her. You tried to video chat—you needed to see me. The last you saw of me was on the screen on your phone. The top half of my face, just my eyes. Your mother was holding it. I said, “Oh, Bess,” and then, “Put it away, Robin.”

  The longest we ever went without speaking was the week and a half before I died.

  I’d been sick on and off for years, but we didn’t talk about it. We’d drive down South Ocean Boulevard and you’d take the wheel with one outstretched arm while I hacked into a tissue.

  We never discussed our illnesses because we didn’t want the other person to feel helpless. What was there to say? There was nothing either of us could do to fix it.

  When you were diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in college, I couldn’t stand it.

  You lied to me almost immediately. You lied about the hospitalization—“I went in and saw a great doctor, they figured it out, and I’m on the right medication and I’m going to be fine.” You told me it was curable. You lied about the pain and the blood and the gore. When Evan, that boyfriend you had, broke up with you two weeks later, all you told me was he wasn’t coming to Seder. The rat bastard. I asked why not and you held the phone away from your head and I could hear you cry.

  Your face became swollen from the steroids. You would lie awake at night sweating from the medicine and the fear, wondering if you’d die from it one day. Food would hurt you. Stress would hurt you. Your heartbreak hurt you. I should have killed him. Your grandfather almost did. “If I see him on the street, I’ll break his skull.” He really said that.

  When you sank into a depression after the diagnosis, you didn’t let me know. You became very thin. Your arms were like strings and your head bobbled on your neck. You dropped classes and you didn’t tell me. I’d ask you how school was and you’d say, “Fine”—a lie. I’d ask when you were coming to Florida and you’d get very quiet. You couldn’t see past the end of the day. You were in the dark.


  You’re like me. Easily upset. Easily stuck. Easy to cry. Easy to mope. Easy to lie through your teeth, to swallow the blood in your mouth and laugh.

  We get to the point when our bodies won’t let us hide inside them. And that’s the only reason we die. I wouldn’t let that happen to you. I told you, “Bessie. Drop out. It doesn’t matter. You must do whatever makes you happy. Life’s too long if you’re miserable.” You could beat your illness. You didn’t have a choice.

  When you came to Martha’s Vineyard that summer, you brought your friend Katie, who is wonderful. She’s a very good friend, Bessie. An “up” person. Always keep her close. God forbid you outlive Charlie.

  So you landed in the dinky Cape Air plane on Martha’s Vineyard, and of course I was waiting in my spot right at the gate on the landing strip at the airport. And I was waving like a lunatic and you smiled a big, happy smile. And your face was like a chipmunk’s—more than usual—and your eyes were sunken and you could barely pick up your backpack when the man took it out of the compartment on the wing. When they opened the gate, I ran onto the tarmac and pulled you into my arms and into my chest and your chin bobbed down on my shoulder, and I squeezed you until I felt your vertebrae pop. I held you so hard you could barely draw breath. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Then we held hands as we walked to the car and we didn’t say a thing.

  You know the story of my zayde. He was always dead broke and in trouble with a bookie, but he made it through the pogroms and the passage to America, and he kept living until everyone he knew was dead. And you know what he said—I’ll say it again, I don’t care if you’ve heard it a thousand times. I don’t care if you can say it backward in French standing on your head. He told me, “Bobby, when the world is cracking behind your feet, you keep walking forward.”

  You march forward.

  January, February, March.

  We thought my lungs would do it, but it was my heart that went out in the end. My lungs were always the problem. Blame the smoking, though I never did. Blame the years bringing lunch to your grandfather’s construction sites breathing in God knows what. Whatever it was, as I got older, they troubled me constantly. Your grandfather became very nervous when I’d cough in my sleep. He’d stay up at night watching me, tears in his eyes. I was intubated more times than you know. I’d call your father sometimes very late at night—thank God your mother married a pulmonologist—and he’d listen to my breathing over the phone and he’d send me to the emergency room. I had operations. We never talked about it—you’d be so far away out in California. What was I going to do, ruin your day? So I’d let my phone go to voice mail until I could say the words: “I’m fine, Bessie. I’m fine.” I’d leave enough of it out, but I wasn’t lying.

  In my last few years, everyone was sure of two things: I could go at any second, and I’d live forever. I’d let it slip to you when I was very tired—I’d taunt you with it: “You know, I’m not going to be around forever.” You’d say your line: “Grandma, you’re going to walk my children to preschool. You’re going to torture them like you tortured me.” When I was humoring you, I’d say, “Fine,” and when I was feeling angry, I’d just say, “No.” You can’t say I was ever wrong.

  I was always very active, as hard as it was. I’d walk every day. In Florida I’d put on my sneakers and get out of the building, and I’d walk down South Ocean Boulevard until the curve in the road, then I’d walk back. I’d walk with a friend and gossip, and when they all died, I’d walk with your grandfather. We didn’t have to say much, but we walked. I walked at my pace—fast, head low, onward. Faster than him. He’d shout, “Bob! Slow down!” and I’d say, “Hank! Speed up!”

  On the Vineyard we’d drive fifteen minutes from the house to Menemsha and park at the Galley and walk the dock. We’d go all the way to the end and back—sometimes twice if I was feeling spry and there wasn’t too much wind. Before we got back to the car, I’d get a veggie burger from the take-out window and your grandfather would get the fried chicken wings. Sometimes I’d get a soft-serve ice cream or French fries and a decaf iced coffee. Or we’d get calamari and onion rings for later. We earned it.

  But by the end it was an accomplishment if I walked anywhere. I walked on the treadmill in the apartment in Florida very slowly—your mother watched me do that in the last days. “Mom! Slow down!” I’d get angry. It was very upsetting becoming so slow. To be stuck. For your body to beg you to stop. For nurses to come into the house and bathe me when I couldn’t get out of bed. You can’t imagine. You can’t imagine the pain of becoming slow, of knowing it’s as fast as you’ll ever be again, of not being able to call you, of letting the phone ring until it stopped because I couldn’t tell you I was all right. In my last week, you didn’t hear from me. I didn’t have anything to say.

  You mustn’t be so angry at yourself for not getting through to me in those last days. You’ll never escape the knife blade of that guilt pressed to your throat. You must move forward. You’re sorry and so am I. What are we supposed to do now? Talk about it? Ha. You can write all you want, but you’re still at a desk in a world where I don’t exist. I’m the way you think.

  FACETIME CALL, FEBRUARY 27, 2017

  THE LAST TIME I’LL SEE YOU

  GRANDDAUGHTER: Grandma, we got another cat! Look! His name is—

  GRANDMOTHER: Ugh. You and the cats. Don’t show me the cats. We are not cat people.

  Fine. How’s Florida? How’s the weather?

  I’m so lonely. Everyone has died.

  Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Everything’s fine. Do you want me to come down? I can be there tomorrow night.

  Your mother is with me.

  All right, so in that case you can cry.

  Ha! She’s worried.

  That’s her job.

  That’s my job.

  That’s my job. Are you sleeping at night?

  No.

  Are you eating?

  Yes. I had a Reuben for lunch.

  How was it?

  It was fair.

  Are you in any pain?

  I’m just so upset. So tired.

  Me, too. But there are wonderful things to look forward to.

  Huh. Like what?

  Charlie and I will have a baby someday.

  Oh, Bessie. Oh. Oh.

  And you’ll be there to give it hell. To make it miserable.

  Oh, how I want to.

  Grandma?

  My angel?

  If you’re not around when it’s born, I’ll kill you.

  You have a deal.

  { part four }

  AFTER ME

  WHAT HE’LL DO

  I DON’T KNOW WHAT HE’LL DO, now that I’ve gone first.

  Oh, how he needs me. Who will he talk to? Who will remind him to have lunch? The only thing he’s ever made is a bowl of cereal. Even then, it’s all milk. He’ll have to hold your child and I won’t be there. He’ll cry. You’ll cry. He’ll have to walk by my makeup brushes in their silver jar on my bathroom counter. The brigade of orange medicine bottles with my name on them he’d picked up from the pharmacy just a few days before. He’ll have to answer the phone. He’ll have to watch movies alone. He’ll have to button his cuffs. He’ll have to see the sun go down and the sun come up. He’ll be surrounded by the books I’ve read and he’ll be envious of them, my old friends. He’ll read a few pages of Didion and put it down. “What is this about?” He’ll have to wonder about what was in my head. He’ll have to live. He’ll have no reason except the beating of his heart. The lungs that fill and empty. The body that carries on at half-mast. He’ll kiss the coffin like I’ll feel it.

  THE DAY I DIE

  You’ll be alone in the car when you get the call from your mother at around four p.m. on a Friday. Thank God you’ll already be pull
ed over. It would’ve been two of us dead in a day.

  You and Charlie will have been driving back from a night in Malibu—you had the day off from work. “You know what you do when you’re feeling blue? Check into a hotel.” “I can’t afford to do that.” “Use my card.” You’ll have checked into a cheap rental apartment off the Pacific Coast Highway instead. It made Charlie more comfortable, and by that point that’s what matters to you.

  Two things will happen that Friday morning at the beach in Malibu that will be very unusual in retrospect. Or maybe they won’t. Every detail takes on a certain foreboding air before a disaster.

  You’ll take your paddleboard out beyond the pier and you’ll see a dolphin in the distance behind a white buoy. For whatever reason, you’ll decide that dolphins come in pairs, so if there’s one there must be another and you want to find out. You’ll paddle fast—too fast!—to the place where it crested out of the water. You shouldn’t be out there alone. It’s the open ocean! A wave could tip you over and you could hit your head and drown and that would be the end. Dead and floating with a strap around your ankle. Who needs a wave? You could lose your balance for no reason at all! You’ve never been a natural athlete.

  So anyway, you’ll go after this dolphin, and of course it will have long disappeared. And you’ll be out of breath, and at the buoy you’ll sit down on the board and tuck the paddle under your leg, and a seagull will land right on the buoy in front of you. You’ll be startled. “Hello!” It will look right at you. And you’ll look right at it. You two will hold your glare, but you’ll get spooked and you’ll get up and paddle away. You’ll look over your shoulder after a minute or two and it will have disappeared.

  Right around then, back on the shore, Charlie will lose his phone. He’ll be jogging on the sand and it’ll fly out of his pocket directly into the ocean. Bop! Destroyed in a chaotic instant. He’ll be very embarrassed—it’s not the kind of thing that happens to Charlie. It’s a matter of pride how he keeps his things. You’ll get back to shore and he’ll explain the situation, and you’ll dry off and load into the car to go to the store on the way home and try to haggle for a new one. You’ll find street parking outside the Verizon store at Wilshire Boulevard and Twenty-sixth Street in Santa Monica. You’ll sit there with your feet up on the dashboard while Charlie goes in to make his case for a free upgrade. “Don’t talk to strangers,” he’ll deadpan. You’ll be generous and laugh.